Foot Archer Tactics - Bannerlord Battlefield Tactics Guide

[@Mikalent]

So, I use Crossbowmen over archers, I run mainly Imperial. The reason I have always advocated for Imperial Crossbow Sgts over Palatine Guard. They both have effectively the same amount of ammunition (20 bolts V 24 Arrows, with the crossbow being slightly higher damage) however the big advantage for the Imperial Crossbow Sgt is they spawn with the exact same weapons as Imperial Legionaries, a slightly worse shield, and slightly worse chest armor. This means Crossbow Sgts can serve as discount Legionaries once they run out of ammo, as Legionaries are already arguably top 5, if not outright best, melee infantry unit in the game right now. Having what are effectively slightly worse Legionaries with crossbows means that you have a unit that can at least hold its own against enemy infantry and horses, while being able to put out some range damage and join the shieldwall once they run out if ammo.

[@Strat-Guides]

That's a great point, the ammo is nearly the same but crossbows have more damage output so total potential damage is greater for the crossbows, it just takes them longer to get them all loose.

[@The_Custos]

They are also really good in sieges. AI seems to love to try and take headshots with them when defending.

[@joeabplanalp]

One thing I've noticed in your tests with hills is that most often you position the enemy targets at the very foot of the hill. The problem with this is that no matter where your archers are then placed on the hill, their fellow archers will sometimes be blocking their line of sight to the enemy, thus limiting the advantage you get from the hill. In a practical battle the foot of the hill would be where you place your infantry, preferably even a little further out. Properly set up, you can have every single archer in your formation firing together, even in more densely packed formations. This is amazingly helpful in large battles where it's difficult to find enough space to spread out your archers without exposing them to easy flanking. Just find a hill and do your best to fit the entire formation of archers onto the hillside facing the enemy. In a practical example you'll have infantry soaking up the enemy archer's arrows, so even in densely packed formations return fire isn't a huge deal, so long as your front line holds. One final note, I've had some great success with treating mounted archers as mobile flank instead of just setting them to charge. They seem to be FAR more accurate once they stop their horses, allowing some truly devastating volleys into the backs of an advancing shield wall.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah for sure, the main point of the test was to see if foot archers could go toe to toe with horse archers in open combat. I was hoping to find some formation or combination that would work, but it's just too steep of a deficit to make up :( Agreed, that's how I use my horse archers as well! I'm going to be doing extensive testing on horse archers next week so I'll get numbers to back that up, but I'm with on you on that!

[@irish2772]

Tip for people who may not know. If you left click the icon above the archers then left click the ground and drag right, you can extend the formation. I use that technique in conjunction with "loose formation" and it's devastating. Like Strat said, the key is to make it so the archers don't get in each other's way. Then I put an infantry column behind them for a counter charge for when the enemy gets to close. Just make sure you drag left to right. If you drag right to left they'll be facing you.

[@ItsNotMyWallet]

THATS WHY MY DAMN TROOPS ARE ALWAYS BACKWARDS. Thanks random guy

[@irish2772]

@@ItsNotMyWallet you're welcome, random guy.

[@ryanpresquatt9266]

Is this possible for console at all?

[@irish2772]

@@ryanpresquatt9266 it is.

[@irish2772]

@@ryanpresquatt9266 just realized what you meant. I'm not sure, brother. Only one way to find out. Fire up a custom battle or old save and try it out. I don't see why it shouldn't be, try whatever button is "select" on your console I assume.

[@Crim_Zen]

Good thing I've always done loose formation. I do it to give the enemy a harder time to hit targets in clusters. I prefer the crossbow on my hero instead of in my army. It makes mounted combat pretty easy since you can reload while riding away.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah it does seem to make quite a difference. I think that's also partially why horse archers take less damage as their line formation is similar to foot troop's loose formation. That and the horse taking damage for them.

[@SocuteRaptor]

When I played the game, I could not use crossbow on horseback. They fixed that? 😲

[@Strat-Guides]

@@SocuteRaptor Yeah there are a few that work - if you hover your mouse over the crossbow, it will have a little symbol if it's not allowed to be reloaded on horseback. The high end ones won't let you without the perk, but the lower 2 or 3 do allow it!

[@slicker83]

@@SocuteRaptor How you want reloaded crosbow on horse?

[@Strat-Guides]

It works the same as if you're on foot, just press the same button to shoot and it will start the reloading animation. The key is to get a crossbow that is allowed to be reloaded on horseback. The weaker ones allow it, so just get the cheap ones and try that.

[@mikhailfilitov1479]

Another great one. So much to process in it. Honestly the most interesting bits for me involved crossbows - the range advantage and the "Musket warfare" strategy was incredible. I feel like keeping a line of infantry close behind the crossbows to follow up that devastating volley could be extremely efficient.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I was very surprised to see how effective those crossbows were at that range. I tried it again afterwards splitting them into 3 groups all in a single line, trying to shoot, then move the 2nd row in front to shoot, then the 3rd row, then the 1st row would be reloaded etc. but it didn't work lol I tried it in loose formation too so they wouldn't get stuck trying to walk past. I need to do most testing, but it was pretty fun seeing the coordinated vollies!

[@The_Custos]

It just works.

[@Badwolfsblade]

An additional reason why high ground is so important for archers is that it makes it easier for them to shoot over hills, other obstacles and your own troops. Also, have your crossbows face the other way against enemy ranged troops. That way, they turn around when reloading, making the shields on their backs a great defensive tool

[@Strat-Guides]

Interesting, I didn't know the crossbows would turn around to reload! I'll have to try that out today - Thanks for the tip!

[@Badwolfsblade]

@@Strat-Guides Actually, I just tried it out again, and it doesn't seem to work - although I'm sure it did in a very early version of the game. I didn't play much with crossbows since I discovered the power of the Fian. Sorry for spreading misinformation

[@Strat-Guides]

@@Badwolfsblade No problem, thanks for letting me know. It's hard to match the effectiveness of Fians!

[@joselazo9799]

@@Badwolfsblade This was a passive benefit of crossbows in Warband, may have been removed in Bannerlord. I think the Crossbow skill tree gives the main character this benefit at a certain level, don't think it effects the troops though. It's also only 75% coverage.

[@kubaGR8]

@@Badwolfsblade In Bannerlord, getting hit in the shield worn on one's back doesn't stop the shot like in Warband, it just adds 15 armour to your torso.

[@fredflintstone1787]

To counter horse archers you almost always need at least a small unit of cavalry to intercept them and then try to charge with infantry, preferably 2h troops. Additionally, when I fight khuzaits I always try to get a battle map with some water and lure them in a lake/river, then it becomes much easier to get them with infantry and absolutely devastate them.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah it seems when they are forced into melee mode they fall apart (except Khan's guards lol those guys are insane)

[@fredflintstone1787]

@@Strat-Guides Oh how many times have I seen a khan's guard losing a horse, grinned like an idiot, and then watched as he whipped out his glaive and one shot 3 elite infantrymen before someone finally shot him down...

[@DIEGhostfish]

I wish there was a way to even further set attack priority for Cav to hunt bowcav most

[@JoycenatorGaming]

You’ve been doing some truly great work, this has been really helpful. I’ve been using Skein against horse archers with some degree of success but usually with height advantage and a small group of cavalry to guard their flanks. My best guess for this is that since horse archers like long, sweeping, arcing movements anyway it just exposes them to the skein for longer? And then obviously with height it gives them trouble with closing and/or maintaining full speed, which of course makes them easier to hit. No idea what to do in lieu of some kind of (even bad) cavalry to watch their flanks though

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm not really sure why skein would work there, I think I would have to test it out. I'm having a hard time visualizing what would be at play there. Yeah the height makes a difference for sure. We will be getting into mixed battles in the next couple of weeks which should be a bit more practical :)

[@JoycenatorGaming]

@@Strat-Guides yeah and obviously it’s anecdotal and not remotely a controlled or tested environment so who knows how much of it is just bs confirmation bias (I won so it must have worked fallacy) but it’s worth looking into I think. Can’t wait to see your results!

[@Strat-Guides]

@@JoycenatorGaming Yeah I know what you mean, there is a lot of that in the gaming community in general :) Sounds like you have a technical background as well??

[@JoycenatorGaming]

@@Strat-Guides background in education and history with a penchant for scientific analysis and data entry 😂 you?

[@Strat-Guides]

Well that makes sense then. It's not common for the average person to use that kind of lexicon :) I studied Physics and Astrophysics in college, but run my own business now so I do a lot of analysis on my own still to keep things on track!

[@frydog4217]

I'm looking forward to seeing you implement all these new tactics in your next playthrough!

[@Strat-Guides]

We are going to need it big time lol it's going to be a brutal campaign :)

[@weak1ings]

I've found in singleplayer that keeping a number of shielded infantry can be useful for fighting horse archers, setting them to charge the horse archers while you order your archers to face direction will stop them from being able to circle you, killing the horse archers. (This also stops your archers from walking around, killing their dps)

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a good tactic to use. Does it differ from MP?

[@weak1ings]

@@Strat-Guides I have no experience with it but should be decent. Please let me know if you get to try it! I expect the counterplay would be to have horses follow the enemy commander who'd try to steer them around but ai isn't that smart lol. Learned this last year while conquering the khuzhaits with imperials foot troops.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@weak1ings I have not tried MP yet either because I've been on the beta branch since I started the channel. But once I finished some more guides and don't need to be on it, I'll definitely be trying it out :)

[@UCeagle79]

I felt like the first half was common knowledge and not great because of the controlled environment. I really liked the different unit testing combos and formations vs horse archers. I found a couple good strats. Corner camping especially with shields. And having 2 small units rush the horse archers while having the rest shoot. Archers can be better in several small groups.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that might be the case. I wanted to be thorough (but go through it quickly) just in case there are newer players that aren't aware. But you're right, the testing in controlled environment are meant to be like building blocks for use later when we get into mixed unit combat. Personally, I've noticed it's difficult to know exactly why certain battles are won. So without isolating formations, commands, unit types, etc. it would be nearly impossible to know why something is working well. Granted, for a late game army it's probably irrelevant because you can use terrible tactics but still win given the gap in troop quality. Yeah going to the edge of the map really messes with their ability to circle. Once we start using a full army, it will be much easier to counter, but at least it's good to know that it's nearly impossible to win in an open battle, troop for troop against horse archers.

[@IMortage]

The biggest advantage of higher ground isn't the better shooting result, it's the extra time until the melee enemy closes the distance, especially cavalry.

[@bjbj6002]

thank you for running all these tests mate, i appreciate the knowledge i gained

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm glad it was helpful!

[@atomisten]

these archer formation tests would be interesting against cavalry. i think against melee cav loose archer formation in stay the line is the best but not sure. sometimes having denser lines help with cavalry being stuck there so they can kill them faster.

[@Jixxor]

Horse archers are such a menace, my god

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah they are a pain. It's a good thing they don't mass them up like the player can. The most I've seen is maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of their total forces, which can be dealt with using a mixed army a bit easier.

[@sunshineinabag9956]

Skein dose extra moral damage because it's arrows in the arrow formation

[@Strat-Guides]

Rofl if only that were true! :D

[@PendlayRoe]

Goddamn horse archers! Trying to help Sturgia win a war against the Khuzait is a nightmare

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol yeah they are. It seems like terrain is the best way to handle them, but that's not always an option :(

[@SirNarax]

The horse archer vs archer thing should probably be addressed by Tellworlds. Historically and practically speaking foot archers were absolutely superior to horse archers against one another. Infantry are a smaller target, could loose arrows faster, could use more powerful bows and were more accurate. Horse archers beating infantry archers is as silly a concept as heavier armor giving you less defense. It is also not all that great from a gameplay perspective to have this sort of unit that is just better. Why bother at all with archers when you could just have horse archers? What are the downsides to using them? I honestly thing the unit type needs pretty substantial nerfs most specifically the friendly fire thing which just gives them a huge advantage in firepower unnecessarily. I'd also just make them less accurate and shooting slower. Horse archers are the evolution of a skirmisher unit, if a unit can't reach them they will eventually win but when a horse archer gets into range of someone that can fight back they should lose. Be that them charging into a guy with a spear or entering the range of an archer.

[@Strat-Guides]

It's funny you mention that, I just finished the house archer testing and I'm going to recommend skipping foot archers when possible lol you can just use horse archers that do as much damage from the same range, but have extra HP from the horse AND can move to flank or retreat easily. Oh, and they cost the same per day. Balanced by TW Maths lol

[@Bzorlan]

@@Strat-Guides I read that as extra horsepower from the horse

[@Serocia]

@@Strat-Guides Are dismounted horse archers effectively the same as their normal archer counterparts? Maybe they're worse in sieges specifically? I'm only just getting into Bannerlord so I've been combing these guides and stuff. iirc, a lot of fluff about medieval stuff says *essentially* that horse archers are better in just about every regard minus being more expensive (which is a huge factor back then with how people are trained/equipment given) and, y'know, not being able to use their horses in castles.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@Serocia So as it pertains to Imperial archers(Paletine vs Bucellarii) they seems to perform the same when both are on foot. Yeah the biggest downside to horse archers during a siege is if they go down, you lose the horse it cost to upgrade them. Not the end of the world, but something to consider!

[@Strat-Guides]

@@Bzorlan Haha yeah that can get confusing, I forgot about that :P

[@j.ackermann9110]

So what you are saying is giving the archer some space and having them stand still while aiming gives better results? So Bannerlord fighting is actually realistic for once.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol sort of... :P

[@mikeehrmantraut2607]

very interesting but a bit fast. im pretty settled in english but its still not my 1st language. if i had any feedback for you besides my appreciation for your time and effort i would suggest to take a little bit more time to explain what we see and what it means. i felt like i just made a speedrun just watching all this nice stuff. thank you for that but i bet i missed half of it :-P

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm sorry lol I'm trying to slow it down a bit still! I understand where you are coming from, I'll try to adjust it further. For the previous episodes, you could try to run it in youtube at 75% speed. But moving forward I can try to slow it down more, but I do like to keep a good pace because I want to make sure these aren't 30+ minutes videos :)

[@mikeehrmantraut2607]

@@Strat-Guides ha! you right. i never used that feature. good tip!

[@storm0fnova]

3 lines of loose formation on a hill. the more archers just make the lines longer not more lines. if the hill is really steep you can stack many lines of them but few maps have such steep and large hills. I use my horse archers as archers that have better mobility and don't need to be on a hill to shoot down at people so i use them to flank the sides. shooting while moving = wasted arrows. regarding countering horse archers. i remember back in the days of early patches, the ai would send their HA all to charge and circle my army shooting away, it was super annoying but i just tightly circleed my infantry around my archers in square hold arrow. and sent my cavalry to counter charge them. but now. the AI just sends HA to harass and after they ran into your army they just double back. which makes it annoying when the enemy is aggressively closing in on you as you won't have the leisure time to kill their horse archers in waves. i'd personally use terrain to my advantage and make sure my left flank and back is not exposed. use rocks and hills as cover. split infantry into a square on the left and a shield wall in front. and have your archers them on some elevation. if you can back yourself to the edge of the map that's good too. but if the enemy is defensive and just sending their HA to harass in waves. you can just hold fire till they get close. and hold again when they are too far. your army of archers and horse archers not moving will outperform theirs that are moving. btw. the main reason i use hills to elevate my troops is not even for the vision and damage bonus as much as the ability to position my shield wall in front to soak up the enemy charge. once the melee clash is going on, the flank of the horse archers become the main killing machine while foot archers have some of their vision blocked by the shield wall but they can still shoot over at enemies behind the main clash, and more importantly focus on enemy cavalry that's sticking out

[@Strat-Guides]

100% agree, I do that same thing with my horse archers. I'm going to be running tests to put numbers to that claim, but I suspect it's probably close to 50% more accurate. That's a good point, they don't suicide charge like they used to lol. It's pretty easy to circle behind them with your own cavalry now at least. My biggest thing here was to try to find a good formation to combat horse archers with only foot archers, but clearly it's not possible :) This may be a good case for not using foot archers anymore as horse archers seem to out DPS them in head to head combat. I'll have to test that when we get to mixed unit combat.

[@storm0fnova]

@@Strat-Guides i think it's hard to beat horse archers with foot archers in this game simply because of the horse absorbing lots of frontal shots. but if you play carefully and use their lack of accuracy as a means to beat them through attrition. you can obviously do crossbowmen shield formations to absorb all shots then fire back when they become sword melee cavalry. sounds cheesy but it works. i've ran tests of tier 3-4 footmen vs tier 5 archers and i just go afk come back and lose about half my men to kill all archers. they shoot all their arrows and run in 1 at a time. or if all you have is archers and don't want to use even elevated terrain as advantage. then it might sound convoluted but try forming 3-4 even 5-6 formations of archers. and form at least a triangle facing out, or square etc... this will allow you to not be surrounded and shot from behind. additionally. microing hold fire and fire as they circle would allow you to not waste arrows as much. if you want to minimize archer casualties. just put some shield infantry in areas in tight squares so they don't block your archers much but give the enemy something to shoot at. the arrow count attrition aspect varies greatly based on troop type though. some have 1 but others have 2 quivers and some contain significantly more shots than others.

[@TheMisterAs1]

You should try placing units in forest.

[@Strat-Guides]

I was hoping to save that one for mixed unit combat, but I probably should have tried it here too :(

[@Senovitj]

In my Battanian campaign I use loose formation for my archers, while cavalry and infantry attack each flank. 70-80% is archers.

[@Strat-Guides]

Wow that's a lot of archers! Sounds like they may not even reach your lines lol

[@Senovitj]

@@Strat-Guides Everyone loves a good needlepoint, especially when the "needles" are 30-40 cm long. My cavalry and infantry distract their infantry. Their cavalry get slaugthered with arrows or by the Fians twohanded swords. The Battanians shall rule Calradia, and turn the Vlandians into bandits!

[@Strat-Guides]

@@Senovitj Lol needle point huh, you shall hence forth be known as "Senovitj the weaver" :D Needling your foe into pincushions! I see only one mistake you made here - The Vlandians are and will always be Bandits ;)

[@RandomDeathcone1]

I have actually had positive/okay results come out of crossbows/archers vs horse archers using the skein formation (I put my formation on the high ground/a slope). Although these were of course not set up fights, so numbers were never equal etc etc. might still be worth a shot though? (hehe)

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm curious to know how much advantage the slope of the hill is giving. I would have to run some tests to know for certain, but I wasn't able to get it working in tests. Let's just blame TW maths :D

[@RandomDeathcone1]

@@Strat-Guides I forgot to add that when I use the skein formation (with ranged units) I usually drag it out to create like 2 - 2.5 rows of units, if that makes sense? I find that the game usually by default when you place down the formation just clumps everyone as close together which isnt effective at all. Atleast in the case of archers/crossbowmen. I do believe I was mainly using crossbowmen with a few archers sprinkled in, due to recruitting high tier prisoners like battanian fians/tier 4+ faction archers. I actually originally wanted to use the skein to protect the very little infantry units I had, which I were leveling up at the time, so I placed them right behind the center of the skein. (it surprisingly worked better than intended)

[@Strat-Guides]

@@RandomDeathcone1 Yeah for sure, the default looks like a thick arrowhead, which seems almost useless lol I wish it was a little easier to get skein into a good shape. I would love if they had buttons to "add rank" and "add column" so we didn't have to measure it out exactly.

[@RandomDeathcone1]

@@Strat-Guides Yeah, its really awkward to drag it out manually with the mouse mid battle. But if im gonna use it I will usually have decided in the battle planning mode or whatever its called (where you can assign captains) and then I drag it out with the mouse there instead. It would be nice even if it was a bit like in Mount and Blade: Warband, where you could use the "loose" command several times to make your units spread out more and more.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@RandomDeathcone1 It's made a lot easier with the RTS mod, but I don't like using that for a legit battle. It seems a little cheaty :( Ooh that's a good idea, issuing the same command a few times to spread them out. I really hope they add that in!

[@hellboy7312]

I think the battanian fian champions or any cavalry unit will do it against uorse archers

[@rcutler9]

Only a fool would meet the Dothraki in an open field! But really, when it comes to facing horse archers with foot soldiers, don't fight in an open area. Best case force them into a siege to remove the horse entirely. Some infantry hiding in a forest might do some damage to a horse archer army.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol that's right! They are the steppe nomads of GoT :) Yeah terrain can make a huge difference. My goal was to try to find a good combination of formations to compete with horse archers in the open map, but clearly that didn't work no matter what I tried!

[@caesarsspirit]

One thing unclear about tests is who loses with which formation. F.e. charge and advance is the one losing but it shows 100 winrate.

[@Strat-Guides]

Sorry for the confusion, AI will always be in line formation and charging with the player side varying from test to test. So 100% win rate is for the player's side (the side that varies).

[@florix7889]

I managed to kill horse archers with archers by getting on the top of an impassable hill they Couldn't circle and freaked out and bunched up on terrain making for easy targets. As in real life hard to traverse terrain is the key to beating cavalry

[@Strat-Guides]

Terrain seems to be the best counter. My hope was to find a clever archer only formation that could match their firepower, but it was not meant to be :)

[@florix7889]

@@Strat-Guides oh I didn't understand the question my bad :,) nice video as always !

[@kalebduggar4251]

Why wouldn’t you use loose for this? 7:27

[@Joaquin_Peyronel]

Fian champions can absolutely destroy every enemy

[@蔡林翰-v2m]

等等等等，到底玩家是 紅色隊伍、還是藍色隊伍? 贏輸面到底誰是誰?

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol sorry, I accidentally left it on the wrong side some of the times! The troops on the right side of the screen will always be the player side and the left will be the AI for these tests. I'm using a mod where we can control both sides, making it much easier to run the tests :)

[@djocharablaikan8601]

Something about skein formation just screams "I am a Nord"

[@Strat-Guides]

DId they use that often? I would assume to break the other side's shield wall formation?

[@djocharablaikan8601]

@@Strat-Guides There is that, but aLso try to pronounce Skein without sounding nordic AF 😂😂😂

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol well I'm American so I'm sure I can make anything sound ignorant and stupid :D

[@dakari7817]

bet

[@Strat-Guides]

Bit coin doge coin! I'm not even sure which ones are popular right now lol I haven't looked at Crypto in a while. I might need to update these :)

[@zihaomiao5963]

from bannerlord online, the best strat is run ur archers vertical to something that the horse archers stuck on... mountains, rocks, even the edge red wall works... so that when the horse archers try to circle, it get stuck on it, forming a condensed blob, while ur archers are loose formation. something else that can work is have some shielded troops shield wall and charge while others loose and shoot.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that certainly works, I was trying to avoid using the cheesy tactics like going to the edge of the map :) It's probably the most effective though, even Khan's guards go down that way.

[@storm0fnova]

@@Strat-Guides personally i think "edge of the map" is a handicap rather than cheese. in real life i would be able to move past that edge to other areas. battles are all about out maneuvering your enemy and you can hardly do that with such small field maps less than 1k across

[@christianmunkjensen8817]

In a mountain pass there would always be a wall to stand next to.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I agree, which is why I don't really like doing that. I try to stay away from cheese and exploits since most of the fun in these games is the challenge :)

[@phaledax3661]

@@storm0fnova In real life and in history a large consideration when taking an engagement is the terrain and your units ability to use it to best advantage.

[@daviddavidson505]

Corner camping works as well in Bannerlord as it does in Total War. If the enemy cavalry can't circle or flank you, all they can do is confusedly stand around in optimal shooting range. When fighting Aserai and Khuzait, it always pays to pull back to the map edge. I don't like doing it because of where additional friendly troops spawn in, but it still nets better results to hug the wall and let the reinforcements deal with the pain than it is to try to remain in the spawn area and let yourself get circled by the horse archers.

[@Strat-Guides]

Good point, the edge of the map seems to ruin the AI's pathing lol It's always funny to watch them clump up and stutter step around trying to figure it out.

[@justinlast2lastharder749]

The damn AI does this to me constantly. They run back to the edge and each time I charge through them, I'm playing the "I've got ten seconds to get back on the field" game.

[@Strat-Guides]

*For the Fian Champion Range testing, I accidentally typed Palatinate instead, but it's definitely the Fian Champ range at about 200m. This was a looong one to test, my apologies if the guide comes across as slightly scattered. I did my best, but probably should have taken a break at some point lol If you have not seen any of the previous 3 episodes, you can find them on the playlist here: kzbin.info/aero/PLtLh7oY6l6_-imuXlvZSFiZErbNrG06Ol

[@danielfisher5262]

Thanks for the video but 130 am seems sub optimal for the algorithm.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@danielfisher5262 I suppose I could have scheduled it for tomorrow. It's only 10pm here :) I used to hang onto these until Friday, but now I just release them as I finish them. Thank you for watching, I really appreciate it!!

[@ЯреЯреДазеОраораоров]

irl optimal range for any kind of skirmishing is about 65-75 m, from plubatas of Rome to muskets of Fridrich the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte

[@Strat-Guides]

@@ЯреЯреДазеОраораоров So it sounds like the ranges here are a bit over-exaggerated?

[@ЯреЯреДазеОраораоров]

@@Strat-Guides in theory you can launch modern arrow from modern bow up to 1km, but it uses light arrows, to minimise speed losses and gravity effects of arrow, you can open fire at range of 200 m, but arrows will lose their energy and those deal less damage per arrow (including arrows, that not reached their targets)

[@stemer77]

14:08 gave me that morale boost needed for online classes. Another great video that shows actually how important is to micro your units.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol Go on, Git!! :D It's true, micro is important for when the battles are close. I think the problem a lot of people run into is they get used to using OP armies like fian and cataphract only, then when they need to use a more realistic army in another campaign they are lost :) Hopefully these videos help some!

[@bronzejourney5784]

@@Strat-Guides Its usually how anti-player the command UI is. Sometimes i just f1+f3 a fight purely out of frustration and i go like "fuck it whatever we ball, ill replace the dead later", even though i know how to and have fought a battle in similar odds and won consistently with zero deaths before. Then i dont even participate in the fight, just get on a hill and watch the kill feed, brooding. Taleworks at it again killing my joy.

[@santiagopm88]

As a note though, the point of advance is not to counter standing archers, but to keep your archers away from advancing melee units. It can be sensible to place your archers in front of your melee, and advance (or withdraw) once the opposing melee approaches. That way they keep firing as they get behind your lines, and move to engage their archers once their melee breaks

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a great point to bring up. I like to use it for low-micro decision that are safe, like the flank in the infantry vs archer bonus. It's pretty safe because if they turn on any one of the formations, they will retreat and the other two will pursue. I think advance breaks down when the enemy isn't in shield wall and can catch up, or against cavalry etc.

[@grenadier6483]

So horse archers are only superior to foot archers because they can magically shoot through each other? And here I thought Bannerlord was supposed to be better than Warband.

[@Strat-Guides]

That and the horse absorbs a ton of damage that foot archers would have to tank.

[@grenadier6483]

@@Strat-Guides The tanking part makes sense. Though if you ask me horses in Mount and Blade have always had way too much health, even without armor. One arrow in a horse is usually enough to bring it down, even on larger war-breeds. Despite the OP-ness of horse archers, I'm still a firm believer in the crossbow.

[@irappzz2405]

imperial crossbowmen (t5) have the SAME melee weapon loadout as legionaries except the better armor and better shield but they are still VERY strong in close combat

[@Strat-Guides]

That's pretty crazy! I always though fians would beat anyone in head to head combat, but that doesn't seem to be the case :) I'm going to be doing unit vs unit testing real soon so I'll have a lot more data to compare it to.

[@DIEGhostfish]

@@Strat-Guides Shield+mace is OP as fuck

[@dragonzd97]

sargent crossbows are actually monsters in melee that is why you saw them slap the fians, they spawn with maces often ignoring armour and they have similiar melee states to legionaires. (although worse armour)

[@Strat-Guides]

Hm... that might be the new meta then lol skip the legionary and go straight for massed crossbows. They can shoot until the enemy reaches the line, then smack them around in melee :)

[@DIEGhostfish]

@@Strat-Guides I feel bad for the Fians then. I really like them. Might give up my vlandians for Imperial xbows though.

[@TheShyoto]

Noticed something on my batt foot only run, placing archers back left of the infantry in the hopes they could diminish the HA damage. The HA's committed to the circle came very close to the backs of my infantry before skirting further out. So I tried timing the javelin infantry to quickly spread into a thin shield line backwards and in the path of the murder circle, giving an advance order when the first horse archers clipped the line. It wasn't phenomenal, but it certainly curbed off their numbers a little bit. Will spend some time to see if I can develop it further.

[@miketrice533]

If you figure out how to defeat massed horse archers, Darius would like to know. :D I remember early on trying to use Advance for archers, thinking they'd skirmish. I quickly realized how little shooting they did. Putting them in place and letting them fire at will works really, really well. The biggest issue with loose formation is it's really vulnerable to cavalry, and it can take a lot of space in the field for larger armies.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol yeah he get's stomped a often by them :) Yeah that's true, I'm going to be working on that in the next guide for melee cavalry so hopefully I can find some good solutions.

[@PLTakeMe]

make big line from archers, thats all

[@BonkerzGamer119]

Think this tests are great for mechanics/ interaction but not for tactics, as most army’s should be balanced and this changes the AI behaviour. Best tactic I find for deal with horse archers require using infantry, archers and Calvary in a coordinated attack right at the beginning as they charge at you. I don’t think there should be a formation and troop type that can beat horse archers by themselves as they are more expensive and hard to replace, the reason to bring them is their mobility.

[@dragonzd97]

normal cav is the same price and is just simply countered by infantry holding formation and counter charging. not really a excuse

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah most of these tests are just to see what is the best formation or order to give, assuming all else was equal. That way if we see the enemy approaching with archers in line formation we can be confident our loose formation will win. Or if they come in loose formation, then we need to at least be on a hill or maybe charge they archers with cav to push them back, or risk being out-shot. I think a lot of this will become important once we do mixed battles, but more on the small decision level as opposed to the macro tactical decisions. Not sure if any of that made sense lol It sounded better in my head :P

[@saeer5038]

From my experience those videos are very useful because you never have equal army size. It's good to know how you should play when you find yourself leading 600 archers in 800 troops army.

[@Triumph633]

A few comments on this. Hill advantage might have a slight impact on damage output, but the main advantage is higher range and better angle of attack. The AI will always move in closer if you have archers on hills, therefore your archers will have several free volleys on them. Also melee cav cannot charge archers on a hill because they dont have the speed to couch their lances. Crossbows are really good and outperform Archers against Cavalry and esspecially against mounted archers. Crossbows are THE hardcounter against mounted archers. Crossbow are more accurate and have faster projectiles than bows, therefore they have no problems hitting moving targets and they absolutely murder the mounts of any cavalry/horse archers. They are obviously worse against any unarmored targets or Archers. In my opinion the best way to micro archers in a real battle (minmaxed) is loose formation on a hill, hold position until they are barely engaged in melee, then hold fire and charge. Yes you can technically make them shoot retreat and whatnot, but im not playing Total War im playing Bannerlord, so I think quick commands should be the way to go and this way of microing them is very easy and effective. This obviously only works well if you archers are actually good at melee (like fians, imperials and so on).

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah the range is a huge difference! I always knew it existed, but didn't realize it was that drastic. I was hoping the crossbows would be able to stand toe to toe with the horse archers in open field combat but they will weren't able to match them :( That being said, they did do much better than bowman though. They do seem to be more accurate and pack more punch. Lol good point, TW would need much more micro.

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

Much of the testing is subject to updates and further change. For one, crossbows should have much LESS range then bows, not more, and xbows should do more damage to armor, giving each unit it's advantage.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I was a little puzzled at the crossbow range. I'm pretty sure crossbows are more effective against armor as they hit really hard even at longer range. I've noticed when using late game armor I can just about ignore bow and arrow but crossbows still take chunks of HP.

[@captainkielbasa5471]

An 4-unit archer square, facing outwards, (face-enemy off), is capable of defeating mounted archers on open ground. Try it out! thanks

[@captainkielbasa5471]

(loose formation of coursE

[@absolutechad9735]

Crossbows are really good for sieging, because they will pick off defenders on the walls with incredible accuracy. However, their lower ammo capacity and slower rate of fire really only makes them good for getting your infantry and siege engines to the walls, and that’s about it.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's true, unless you have a lot of crossbow troops on your side to scavenge? Maybe keep a small group in the back that you can "accidentally shoot in the face" to get their ammo :D

[@Fightersword]

The archer versus horse archer thing has always bothered me in bannerlord, because it should frankly be the opposite. Foot archers should control and destroy horse archers, given the size of the target and the density of fire they should theoretically be able to put out. But in mount and blade not only do the horse archers effectively have more health, their horse serving essentially as a shield rather than being a huge vulnerability to archers, they also put out a greater mass of fire, since they're always all shooting when in range, and if you just place them there shooting they'll effectively be as dense as the normal archers (if not more).

[@Strat-Guides]

I think one of the biggest issues that I noticed in running these tests is that it's impossible to compete with the concentrated firepower of horse archers since they can shoot through their friends and hit the enemy. Foot troops cannot and so pretty much any situation where they are moving, they will be at a massive advantage over foot archers. Also as you said the horse it's a problem. Another good point, they shoot when moving while foot archers move around to redo their formation, wasting time.

[@christianmunkjensen8817]

I think it is also that it is hard to hit a moving target, but pretty easy to hit a big group that are standing still. So to win against the horse archers you need to make them stand still with a river, mountain side etc.

[@lorthorn]

you will find in history that the horse archers would also beat archers. so this is historical

[@Strat-Guides]

@@lorthorn It must have been so terrifying going up against them IRL. I can't even imagine!

[@Fightersword]

it's actually strictly the opposite. Mass foot archers were a strong counter to horse archers because horse archers made for bigger targets and had a harder time shooting en masse and accurately as compared to foot archers. They were a harassment force mainly effective against slow infantry for obvious reasons. This is mainly true in the case of light horse archers, which are effectively what you get in bannerlord with the circling harassment machines that are horse archers. Heavy horse archers could stand up to normal archers better since they would effectively function like a dual unit that would shoot off some volleys then charge, but they were still ultimately a bigger target. Crossbows in particular were a great answer to horse archery. The armies that struggled the most against cavalry forces with horse archers were the ones that were comparatively lacking in archers. If we go by history, it is essentially as explicit as 'the main way to deal with to horse archers was by using foot archers'. Hence why this dynamic bothers me so much in bannerlord.

[@crumpet-kun]

It's good to know the old faithful of putting archers on high ground and spreading them out will always be the most reliable way to use them. To be honest I wasn't expecting anything else, but then again, was anybody? Seeing Fians lose against crossbowmen in melee combat however, was a very unexpected result. It's not enough of a reason to replace my Fians, but now I know not to charge them into melee range against crossbowmen, which is good to know because I often use Fians as emergency replacement skirmishers when they (eventually) run out of arrows and my infantry need some support. A man with a sword on the frontlines is always going to be more useful than an archer on a hill with an empty quiver, even if I'd prefer to leave my Fians out of reach because in my current campaign they're not exactly a disposable resource.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I think it was mostly common knowledge. I was a bit surprised at the range difference and also how different ranged effected damage output. I knew there was a difference from long range to close range, but didn't think it would be nearly 5x more at close range! So I was told earlier that imperial crossbows have the same mace that legionary have, making them a good counter to high armor melee troops.

[@The_Gallowglass]

If you have enough archers to spread across the field you can box the enemy into a corner and even make them route before they even die off.

[@Strat-Guides]

Very true, and spread that wide means they probably can't cover all the flanks!

[@The_Gallowglass]

@@Strat-Guides it's nice to have cav or cav archers to flank with while the enemy becomes Swiss cheese from fbe center

[@juicebox6581]

I wonder how drastic the stats would change considering merc crossbows are just slightly better than sharpshooters

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm going to be doing unit vs unit testing soon :)

[@mineman633]

Honestly setting up archers in square formation works decently for low level battles against horse archers

[@kylekelly1167]

I personally only like the advance command for when the enemy wants to sit in the back of the map.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah it's a good command when the danger is low and lots of micro isn't needed.

[@roffels11-gamingandhistory69]

After some own testing in Bannerlord (version 1.8) archers being in loose/spread out/scatter formation holding position (F1, F1) works best for them. Moving them manually around the battlefield using F1, F1, to avoid melee combat with the enemy, makes even the cheapest archers (e.g. vlandian levy crossbowmen) win again high tier, expensive infantry _if the enemy infantry is distracted_ by, let's say, cheap but mobile cavalry like vlandian squires or khuzait noble sons or khuzait tribesmen. Horse archers, no matter their tier/quality/price, work in combination with archers on foot best, if they are lead _around the enemy_ and only then put on "advance" (F1, F4) while the archers without horse stand in front of the enemy (F1, F1). The constantly distracted enemy gets shot by both sides XD. (Of corse take out the enemy cavalry first!)

[@Strat-Guides]

Interesting, I had not considered pairing horse archers with foot archers, but it makes sense. It's a guaranteed flank.

[@prism560]

long range archer in line or shield wall feel more like playing in the age of musket and rifle battle. u get to play as the British empire in medieval times!

[@KTA1sVidsandFacts]

Ok cool, but you still haven't answered on why you were a child soldier at the beginning of the video.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol it was just a save file I had right before a prison break for testing. I made a really skinny character with a massive head and made him 20 years old. It was just me goofing off a couple months ago but decided to use it for the intro and ending :)

[@KTA1sVidsandFacts]

@@Strat-Guides Lol, it was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one!

[@winterzhang9898]

I'm really glad I discovered your channel. Truly amazing work! You definitely deserve more subs. Have you thought about doing a companion guide? Since the companion count is limited, it would be interesting to know which companions are the most valuable that should always be recruited. It's also worth finding out which would make the best governors or commanders, and what are the key perks they should have before giving them those positions.

[@Strat-Guides]

Thank you, I appreciate the kind words! I do have a companion guide on my list :) I was supposed to do it last month, but ran out of time. I'm hoping to get that done this month, but we will see. I have several big topics to cover in the guide so it should answer all of these questions!

[@ClassicCase]

Good tactic to counter horse archers: fix their Friendly Fire Off bs so that only those with a line of sight can shoot :))

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah seriously, it's pretty ridiculous that all of them can shoot with pinpoint accuracy through allied troops and horses.

[@wingfootmcnova9130]

Horse archers are a b**ch to fight against in high numbers. After almost 200 hours on my first play through I just recently had a major war with the Khuzait. I don't think I've ever lost a battle before when numbers were equal but I did that time. Twelve hundred of my mostly infantry army got taken down by their 500 horse archers 300 calvary 400 infantry army. I had 300 higher tier horses in that army but it was no good. Archer groups just don't break like infantry groups and countering high numbers of them is almost impossible without a mostly calvary army. I don't know if any tactics can effectively work against them because they're so chaotic.

[@Strat-Guides]

Ouch! Yeah that's a really awkward spot to be in - large battle with mostly infantry against horse archers. It feels so helpless :(

[@Cassandra112]

yeah, best defense versus horse archers is to just body block them afaik. the A.I. isn't really smart enough to avoid. or to just stop and unleash their arrows. you don't even have to use rocks/edge of map, just send your footmen to the left, then move them into their path as the get closer. while your archers pelt them. Another vid idea to potentially look into. Many Captain perks are not showing up in the army menu. Archer ones in particular. are we sure they are actually working? example. my current Player char has 190 bow or so. bow control, bodkin, quick adjustments and skirmish phase master. none of these show up in Ranged, in the battle formation setup. she also has fury, powerful, and 1h deflect in Athletics. these should also apply to ranged footmen. but do not show up there. and in fact, only Fury shows up in Infantry as well. flexible footwork, 50 throwing shows up in infantry, but not ranged. it should apply to both as well.

[@Strat-Guides]

Good point, I think the best deterrent against cav archers is terrain. I was hoping to find a solution without using that, but it seems a tall task for archer-only army of the same size. Yeah I have that on my list to do some testing. It should be significantly easier to test with the RTS mod since I can take control of any unit :) I'm pretty sure the perks work but just don't show. I remember reading something about it on the forums, but not 100% sure they confirmed it works or not.

[@makaramuss]

it seems like best counter for now is soaking their arrows with shields as there is nothing else to do:They are hard to hit by AI since they are fast moving target (changing aim while shooting reduces accuracy and I am sure it effects AI too) and horse archers deal extra damage sometimes because of speed modifiers. Regular archers are hopeless aganist that. But if we are allowed to be cheeky best way to beat them is terrain. Put your back on a mountain or hill (or ... "out of game" area if you are naughty :D) this will make their skirmish weird as they want to run around but they find no space to do so. Don't take me wrong:All of this you still got disadvantage:Power of horse archers is they got superiority at range but also they never get to melee. They die easly aganist melee cavalary so thats the only counter for now. Spears do nothing too as... they don't charge. what horse archers are bad at:They are bad at defending because they want to be moving so they can't hold a terrain. Using this important. They can get there first but you can take it over easly. I think best thing you can do is this: Get crossbow regiments and put your back behind a wall with some shields to hold frontline(Just a bit like 10 to 1 ratio compared to crossbows) if shields are not enough seperate crossbow regiments and assign them to "hold fire" shield wall to soak more arrows with their shields Keep trading with horse archers until their arrows end and when they charge in for melee hold fire with all of your crossbows and go melee. Shield+sword may beat just swords/spears of horse archers but horse archers most of time still win because they killed a lot at early stage of fight giving them a huge lead.

[@Strat-Guides]

Agreed, terrain seems to be the best counter for an even battle. Good point, only the Khan's guard seem to be decent on foot.

[@sunnyd9321]

5:43 It just feels cursed that a video testing ranged unit effectiveness has this sacrilegious moment where ARCHERS engage with OTHER ARCHERS in MELEE.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol it's like watching 5 year olds when they compete in a karate tournament!

[@emrysmyridden]

foot archers loose to mounted archers because foot archers shoot at the horses as a target. but when the horse dies the horse archer becomes a foot archer.

[@Voshed518]

i would use battanian wildlings against horse archers in a loose line formation that cover a lot of land

[@covrmeporkins38]

Maybe I'm just missing something, but how do you implement different formations with shield wall? I discover new things daily in this game so I'm hoping I just haven't found out how, but I can't seem to make it work. It always lets me do one or the other.

[@Strat-Guides]

So the shield wall formation puts troops into a straight line with shields up, pretty straight forward. The circle and square formation also use shield wall mechanics, but will form into those shapes instead of straight line. For my controls, shield wall is F2 -> F2, Circle formation is F2 -> F4 and square is F2 -> F5. Hope that helps!

[@pr0faker]

the horse archers are pretty much uncounterable,, best thing I do is try to get them not firing at archers but shields, then use archers to kill them. they are one of the most effective units to use on the battlefield (also because their AI programming is pretty decent for M&B terms). Also good counter is.... you. Use superior speed to ride behind them, use a polearm or some long big damage weapon and whack them till dead. Or counter horse archers when micromanaged well.

[@Strat-Guides]

Looking back at history, it seems to be accurate lol I don't think anyone enjoyed fighting against horse archers. Very true, I love to right behind and start whacking them. They are so slow to switch to melee mode so it's easy to get a few hits and move onto the next before they swing back. AND no shields to worry about :D

[@Madhattersinjeans]

I'm kind of ok with horse archers outperforming equal tier foot archers. The higher cost of recruiting and training up the horse archers makes them a more important unit imo. Foot archers tend to have a bit lower surviveability than horse archers simply due to being slower but they are easier to come across and fill the ranks. When mixed composition armies face each other the horse archers are only a real threat if they heavily outnumber the enemy like the khuzait forces, but they're for the most part easily beaten by most opposing cavalry. I find them most useful for forcing engagements with the enemy to draw them out of strong positions or as harrassment. I tend to keep them close because dedicated melee cavalry counter them in a lot of situations. Horse archers in general suffer a bit if they're not micro'd properly, once the two armies engage they tend to just run about any old place and lose their effectiveness. The AI isn't that capable in placing them in proper positions and so long as you can destroy the enemy melee cavalry any horse archers are usually dead weight and are more of a nuisance than a real threat. If your army lacks in cavalry then yeah I can see how this might be a problem. But maybe they're supposed to be? They are expensive to recruit can die to enemy melee cavalry if not protected and are not so great in sieges. So in open battle is where they're supposed to be the best I think. It's the only place their great manoeuvrability and firepower can cause the most damage and their speed can chase down fleeing enemies. But they do require babysitting if the enemy have a lot of melee cavalry. Their great speed doesn't matter if their side is losing and their firepower is negated by armies with lots of shields, good armour or cavalry. While they perform well in these tests in equal numbers I think most of the time horse archers are going to be in situations where they are outnumbered by enemy archers. Khuzait forces are kind of unique. Their lower tier horse archers die quite easily and just forcing them into a chokepoint is usually enough to defeat them.

[@Strat-Guides]

That's a good point. I think also the horse tends to soak up a lot of damage for the rider, giving them more survivability as well. Yeah I agree with that. I think the way the AI uses them is pretty poor tactics. I would like to see them use more hit and run rather than "let's circle around this one unit and ignore then rest of the army around them, oh we are riding through 200 infantry shield wall now - dead". Personally, I think both melee and ranged cav should cost more in wages and supplies (food for horses). I would be okay with them costing another 25 - 50% plus some more food per day to make up for the difference. Then maybe the Khuzaits can have a culture bonus to negate some of that etc. It's just annoying to see a freshly destroyed noble respawn with 15 T6 cavalry and be able to stomp a 50 unit party lol

[@The_Hussar]

Great video as usual! What's the background music? I hear harpsichord but I can't tell what's the piece.

[@Strat-Guides]

Thank you! It's Bach's Goldberg Variations :)

[@94ionut]

i don't get one thing, how are you able to flank the enemy each time? whenever i try this i position my foot soldiers down the middle like 80 meters away, the archer to one side about 100 meters away but when the enemy advances, they immediately turn to archers in shield wall and move towards them although the melee units are much closer, not sure what am i missing.

[@Strat-Guides]

A lot of it has to do with positioning. I will generally stick the "bait" out really far to make sure they collapse on them first. Sometimes they will break off and chase the flanks too, but if they do that it can be an even better opportunity because now they are splitting their forces. If they have 300 infantry line and you have only 200, but they break off 150 troops to chase your flanks, you can now easily swarm their mid with your infantry and envelope them. It's supposed to be a "pick your poison" tactic. I'm going to do more testing using this once we get to the mixed use testing. I'll probably just load up a save file, find a huge army and go to battle with them to test it out in a legit battle rather than these controlled environments. Hopefully that will help some!

[@davidcarter7880]

Loose formation was a no brainer. Unless the enemy range troops are top shelf, sure hit, expert archers, it is a certainty that not every shot taken will hit exactly what they were aiming at. If the friendly formation is shoulder to shoulder, even if the enemy archer misses their intended target, the friendly formation is packed together enough for the deviation to not matter and instead hit another valid target. By spreading out, this turns the same deviation from a sure hit, to a possible miss.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah very true! It's even more pronounced when the loose formation is spread out in a long thin line.

[@mrgongo4253]

horse archers mounted won because the line formation in horses doesnt work the same as line formation on foot. they have space, line for horses is the same as loose for foot

[@Strat-Guides]

I tried loose foot archers formation against line horse archers too. So I tested horse archers on foot in the same formation and it was pretty much a tie. Then I gave foot archers plenty of space and made sure all where shooting from the start, they still lost. I think the spacing does have an effect, but also the horse itself has a huge impact since it limits the hitbox of the rider and soaks up a lot of the damage.

[@mrgongo4253]

@@Strat-Guides yeah horses covering for some arrows might have an impact. Also I found that, generally, the highest tier of horse archers have very high bow skill compared with foot archers, so I think that's also a factor too. As well as gear as you mention.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@mrgongo4253 Good point, I should have looked that their stats to compare. I should have more data soon from the unit vs unit comparison testing.

[@isaacdoggart4879]

Imo you need at least a little cav on the left flank to really counter horse archers, once they are caught on the cav though you can finish it with infantry and archers. Or at least that’s how my last 4-5 wars with the kuzaits has gone.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's probably one of the easiest and most consistent counters. It turns all of the horse archers into melee mod so they just get stuck and pelted to death. Once we get to mixed unit battles we will try a bunch of methods to see which ones work the best :)

[@flipeytoons262]

Do you think the Mameluke Guards or Sturgian Line breakers would loose against the legionaries? because the weapon is different.

[@Strat-Guides]

That's a tough one... but I think Legionary might win out. We will see once I get time to run the tests! I'm right in the middle of a rehab and move so once that's over later next month I'll be back in full production mode!

[@KageRyuu6]

Shock Infantry, except for the Pike, do extremely well when set in a Loose Formation and told to hold till after the enemy Cav Archer Charge eventually collides with the formation, from there Charge. Bout the best match up I can think of without relying on terrain.

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm working on melee cavalry next so I'll be sure to try this one while I'm at it :) Thank you!

[@crafterofdoom]

to defeat Cav while on foot: water. preferably a bridge. pitch my tent, get a fire going, really make it a cozy campsite.

[@Strat-Guides]

Good idea! They pretty much stop in deep water.

[@ladaleenglish6756]

i dont know if anyone else said it but skirmisher troops with throwing weapons will wreck a horse archer especially if you hide them in the trees . i like the wildlings and i just keep them in the general area of my archers if i dont have trees i put them in a square and that seems to work decent .

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a good point! In the other video where I tested javelin troops I found them to be the best counter to horse archers as well.

[@Hortortortortor]

Pikes and column formation for countering horseys? Idk man my pc pooped out months ago so I can’t check if that works.

[@Strat-Guides]

Interesting, that would be a massively long line of pikes. My only concern is just like doing the long skein line, it would eventually break once the first couple of cav impale themselves and the ones behind push through. I'll give it a go though, it sounds like fun lol

[@delge1554]

In a real battle scenario, the best way to defeat horse archers is to first kill their foot soldiers first. I will have infantry and foot archers advantage and horse archers output slow sustained damage.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah it seems the only way to beat horse archers is to used mixed formations.

[@BracownReclidobo]

That disgusting prison break chad will haunt my dreams..... But great video as always!!

[@Strat-Guides]

Haha the young giant-headed Chad :D Thank you!

[@TurKlack]

So. Horse Archer Doomstack to OP please nerf?

[@manicmonarch2608]

Archers in circle formation always does fine against horse archers for me, but I am using Fian Champions.

[@Strat-Guides]

I wonder if you were to run the same battles but keep them in loose if it would make any difference? Fians are just too good though, they might win even with a formation that isn't optimal. Hard to say without testing!

[@sirfancy3876]

How the heck do you split formations? Is it during the pre-battle set up or is that something you could do at any point?

[@Strat-Guides]

You can do it at any time! It really comes in handy when you want to adjust to what's happening on the battlefield.

[@MrSedrack]

So I'll give you my counter to Khuzaits as Sturgia. I put the bulk of my infantry in a shieldwall, at least 3 men thick. right behind them, in a long line shock troops like Heroic Line Breaker. Behind them archers in Loose. Idea is that while the horse archers are shooting the shields in vain, my Archers are shooting them, at least killing their horses. Once they run out of arrows or bring melee cav into range and they slam into the shield wall, most get stopped and cut down, but those who flank or get past the shield wall are met with greataxes immediately by the Line Breakers. Notice that I don't have any Cav. If you have cav, this would be the moment to give them a charge order. My idea was always for the ShieldWall to hold and archers to turn cavalry into infantry by killing their horses. Once their horses are gone, they're no match for Sturgian infantry.

[@DIEGhostfish]

Is it better to make a wide spread or a box spread if your hill isn't wide enough to fit your whole group in a lpng spread

[@Strat-Guides]

If you can, split the archers into a couple groups and you can probably get more shooting at once.

[@quamm14]

Pls make a video for child perk distributing guide, advice etc. thx in advance 👍🏼

[@Strat-Guides]

Got it, it's on the list now! Thank you for watching :)

[@neroclaudius7284]

You don't need the rts mod or whatzit, a fast horse works just fine if you maneuver behind the enemy formation.

[@Strat-Guides]

Agreed, a good mount and some riding skill will do just fine :) I use the mod to help show what things look like overhead, it's a bit easier to tell what's going on that way for the guide. I don't use RTS for actual gameplay though.

[@shadowblade5656]

The tried-and-true "Stationary Loose formation, on a hill if you can get it" being the ideal is not surprising, but even so, this video was useful for me for the crossbow info. I've always tended more towards the bow and ignored crossbow troops, but seeing the differences in action makes me want to play around with them more, so thank you!

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah those hills are really important. They help blunt the cav charges too so it's never a bad thing to hold a hill. Thank you for watching!

[@DIEGhostfish]

I have a weird mix of Fians and Imperial and vlandian crossbowmen

[@Hikurac]

Given the results, is there any reason to use archers over horse archers? With horse archers, you can still do everything normal archers can, like using hill tactics, etc. Plus their horses soak up damage, they can maintain fire in any position, and more easily maneuver or escape if needed. The only downside I can think of is they may not be effective in dismounted melee if it comes down to it.

[@TheElephantChumpkin]

Hey strat I'd like to start off by thanking you for taking the time to reply to nearly every comment which is unheard of in the KZbin community for the most part. Secondly I'd like to ask a question: why do battanian villages have the best recruitable troops, not sure if it's just my save but I started as empire culture and never touched battanian soil, yet I could recruit tier 4 and 5 troops from them even though I've never leveled relationships? I frequent batannia now to get their troops because the highest imperial troops I get even though they're my highest relation and culture is 3 and 4.

[@Strat-Guides]

No problem, I'm trying! It's getting harder and harder now that more people are watching lol it's a good problem to have :) Interesting, it might have to do with perk selection. There is a perk than increases recruitment from same culture, so if you started as a Battanian character that would help. There are a few others that increase recruitment slots as well without needing relations.

[@TheElephantChumpkin]

@@Strat-Guides yeah I'm not entirely sure, my character is empire but perhaps it has something to do with him being redheaded and named Fergus? Lol

[@Strat-Guides]

@@TheElephantChumpkin Lol that must be it :P

[@fredmeyer369]

I always hate horse archers... annoying when fighting large packs of them even with cav.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I agree, it always gives me anxiety fighting against Khuzaits haha

[@FiltyIncognito]

Horse archers being able to fire through each other is just plain ol' broken. What are horse archers' max range? Realistically speaking, their range should be much shorter than foot archers. I imagine that using several small groups of heavy infantry to corral the horse archers out of their effective range would be a decent tactic, and at the same time, the horse archers might also fire instead at the heavy infantry. Another thing to take into consideration for foot archers is that long formations might be detrimental to their output. As archers die they all start shuffling around to maintain the order of the formation. A long formation would necessitate more shuffling compared to something more compact. Long formations also have several other issues: - Changing the angle of the formation takes a long time for the wings to adjust. - It requires far more area to protect. To do so you'll have to stretch your infantry thin or make them run much longer distances to get to where they need to be. - If the enemy approaches from the left or right instead of perpendicular to the formation, the archers on the opposite end will be suffering from being at a much longer range. Another tactic that might be worth exploring is testing to see how close you could place a line of heavy shield infantry to your archers before they start causing line-of-sight issues for your archers. Although the shield infantry wont be quite as effective as the portable walls sometimes used in history, I'm sure it'll reduce archer casualties.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah it's pretty busted, although maybe they did that because the alternative would render them nearly useless? I'm not sure. I was thinking about that after I released the guide, I'll have to test it when we get into the horse archers testing next week. This week I'm working on melee cavalry. I think it will be shorter, but we will see! Yeah once they start moving around to reform their formation it's a snowball effect. I remember testing blocking distance with multiple lines of archers and it's about 4 or 5 troops gap before they can start shooting again. I think it also depends on how far the enemy is though, the closer they are the more acute the firing angle and the more space is needed.

[@FiltyIncognito]

@@Strat-Guides It's a shame there's no true staggered loose formation. The 2 line stagger of loose formation is clearly insufficient. That'd dramatically increase the distance between the next unit directly in front. I hope future iterations of M&B develop the AI and command features a bit better. The current limitations kinda narrow down your options pretty heavily compared to what could be done. In particular, I don't think army PvP could ever really develop into anything serious. It'd just be OP units vs OP units with very little strategic variability. Good luck with the videos!

[@gushlergushler]

I'd be interested how best to fight cavalry with fian champions. Lose formation till they get in close and then line or shield wall I suppose to stop the charge and prevent the cavalry from running through. Anyone has a better idea?

[@Strat-Guides]

If you know you're going to get charged, keep them as tight as possible. I usually use line formation and just make as narrow a line as the game will allow (basically looks like a square, but they perform better than shield square). You might even consider putting them on hold fire for the first charge so they don't get caught drawing a shot.

[@gushlergushler]

@@Strat-Guides Thank you for the good advice, I will try it out!

[@SovietRussia777]

Horse archers are the bane of my existence:(

[@Strat-Guides]

Tell me about it - I just started using the RBM mod and it's even worse! It takes like 10+ hits to drop a single horse archer lol

[@coreyostrander1763]

Ive always used circle with archers inside. Im shocked that your test showed it as a lossing strategy. Perhaps if you take into effect the extra cost of cav it balances out

[@Strat-Guides]

It will still work, it's just not as effective as other formations. The issue is the damage output relative to the enemy formations. If you have 200 archers and they send only 30 - 40 horse archers, then your formation will still work given the force disparity. But if you were to repeat the same battle, but use loose formation for your archers instead and maybe something to your left flank to keep them from circling, you would see a big increase in kill rate :)

[@dorklymorkly3290]

Do you usually get smut bots on your videos? Or was it the "foot" in the title that roused em?

[@Strat-Guides]

LOL It's been a while, although on the latest WC video that same account posted the same comment. That's hilarious about the foot thing though! I flagged them, hopefully they get banned soon.

[@Brodwyn]

For a fairly consistent way to defeat a strong horse archer force, assuming you yourself can wield a decently tiered army as well: Remember the enemy, being on horseback, cannot shoot to the right. Everyone in Calradia is right handed, therefore they can only bend their arms to the left side when shooting with bows. Using this, position yourself so they can either A: Only run to your left and into a wall/rocks/ledge/whatever else. This nullifies their speed advantage and leaves them bunched up and pretty much spinning in place as you mow them down with arrows or bolts or both. Or B: Assuming you have a fairly balanced army, say, 30% cav, 30% inf, 40% ranged, you can place your infantry infront to make the enemy horse archers get in between your infantry and the archers. Once they go in the middle and get confused and try to run to the left of your archer line, have the cav there waiting and charge in. Alternatively have another force of infantry to catch them if no cav is available. Personally I far prefer A, but B can work... sometimes... Apart from those two... good luck lol Anyways, back to archers, yay! Pretty much as you found on the video, the best way to use archers are as a static machine gun position. Personally I've never used the Advance command, probably because I'm not used to it, but also because archers should always stay static for the best shots. Thing about Mount and Blade is that what affects your fighting, more often than not affects the AI's fighting. This includes moving while shooting making it harder to hit stuff and especially for crossbows, making it impossible to reload. So, always, always have archers static when you want to shoot. Also, at least in my experience, it's better to hold fire in the larger battles (like 1000 vs 1000 -large) until the enemy is close by and then loosing arrows to maximum effect. Rather that than having archers standing there like lemons with their swords out because they already shot arrows at max range and got barely any kills. Another point, why do horse archers beat foot archers; pretty much as discussed. They get to all shoot because what's friendly fire anyway. Horse archers probably don't even know the word 'friend'. One more thing affecting it is that horses are chonky boys in Bannerlord, it feels like every horse is a walking needle cushion, only for arrows. That means that even if a foot archer can land 5 hits where a horse archer can land 1 (hypothetical and not based on any evidence aka just an example) the horse could've absorbed 4 of those with ease, leading to the horse archers en masse coming out ahead. It could also of course just be that the foot archers can't shoot horse archers properly, but I don't think leading their shots is really the issue, at least I haven't noticed it to be and I tend to notice these weird AI behaviors. And finally.... I'm just kidding, that's all I can think of that wasn't mentioned or isn't obvious (like of course archers with two quivers are better than those with one, duh. Double the arrows, twice the fun). Anyhow, another great video on the subject I like the most in Mount and Blade games. I hope I don't remember something later since this is already a lot of stuff to read.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah those are solid plans, I particularly like to use the terrain to defeat horse archers. My goal here was to see if there was any formation or combination of formations that would beat them in a head to head matchup, but it's pretty clear that's not easy to do :) Yeah I was pretty surprised at how quickly the damage dropped off for archers. Especially in those huge battles, it's not hard for archers to run dry before it's even halfway done! Lol "friendly"! I wish my arrows could do that, it would have saved many of my own troop's lives in the Frederick series!! To be honest, I was caught off guard with how even the dismounted archers were in the testing with foot archers. It seems the horse makes an enormous difference and makes me wonder if using foot archers is even worth it? I might try a campaign where all archers will be mounted and used as firing platforms instead of flanking archers.

[@ivan200804]

I was right, Putin was watching your Frederick the Great videos.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol Hopefully he was watching my Robin Hood playthrough cause that one ended in horrible defeat :P

[@madijeis4320]

Crossbows seem at their best at around 150m when facing archers, their advantage in projectile speed maximizes there

[@Strat-Guides]

Good point, also I think bow effective range is closer than that so even though they return volleys the damage is pretty small.

[@AzoiatheCobra]

there is a perk in one handed that boost shielded infantry. They should patch it to boost foot units

[@Strat-Guides]

I would like to see them revisit a lot of the perks before final release. Some things definitely need to be changed!